Chances are, you’ve tried multiple levers to cut down on turnover in your call center, warehouse, or other high-volume hiring location. Chances are also decent that those efforts aren’t working. We’ve heard of employers who feel like they have “tried everything” but still have above 100 percent turnover. (For more about reducing turnover in high-volume positions, check out this free guide.)
Those big turnover numbers exist because so often companies looking to keep people longer start by asking themselves, “how can we change this job to stop people from quitting after two months?”
They’re asking the wrong question. The most effective (and by far least talked about) way to reduce turnover is to improve the effectiveness of your hiring process.
According to the Harvard Business Review, 80 percent of turnover can be attributed to bad hiring decisions. Some companies, however, are spending 80 percent of their turnover-reduction efforts on post-hire programs and initiatives!
If you want to reduce turnover, you need to change that time allocation. You need to spend more of your efforts on modifying your candidate screening process.
By bringing a more data-driven, modern approach to your high-volume hiring, you’ll find that your employee retention improves. That approach means, for example, using interview questions and assessments to select people who have the right career commitment, career satisfaction, and other traits associated with employee tenure in call centers. That’s what the data proves, even if it’s not what everyone’s talking about.
